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In Sickness and In Health

Have you ever been to a marriage ceremony where the couple wrote their own vows? I still remember hearing, at one wedding, the words, “I promise to love you more than chocolate.”

My husband and I, on the other hand, had a more traditional wedding:

love, honor, cherish
for better, for worse
for richer, for poorer
in sickness and in health

How young and naive we were! I thought of “sickness” as a headcold or the flu. Real sicknesses were for old people, or those who hadn’t taken care of themselves. If we made sure to eat right and exercise, we’d be fine. At least, that’s what we thought.

We were wrong. Good nutrition is important. So is exercise. But life holds no guarantees. Sometimes people just have bad luck.

The first few months in RA-land were rough. Like most men, my husband wanted to fix everything. It was hard for him to have to stand by helplessly. So he tried to help. In the past we’d stayed away from medicines, and I’ve been pretty open to trying alternative remedies. The more I learned about RA, though, I realized that could have dreadful consequences. My husband was a bit perplexed at my resistance to his suggestions that I try the various home treatments he heard about, and I was highly annoyed to have the person who should have been my biggest supporter instead trying to sabotage my chances of feeling better.

Eventually, though, he got the hint that I’d done enough research that I was going to stay mainstream on this. He’s been very supportive. I appreciate so much his understanding and helpfulness.

Tonight we went out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary. I took my pill box.